PlayStation 3 EyeToy Camera Announced

Thursday 26th April 2007

Sonys 'unofficial' blog, ThreeSpeech.com has just announced a summer launch date for PlayStation 3's much anticipated EyeToy.

PlayStation 3 is very good at being compatable with any plug and play USB webcam, including the XBox 360's own special camera.

So? What can we expect from the shiny new camera, designed specifically for PlayStation 3 and it's future apps such as Home.

Here are the key features of the new EyeToy:

A sophisticated microphone with the ability to reduce background noise and focus on the spoken word for smoother, more accurate speech recognition and transfer
The ability to capture videos and audio clips directly to your PS3’s hard disk drive
Engineered to perform well even in low-light conditions
A range of different capturing modes, including slow motion and time-lapse
Faster frame rate for improved tracking, responsiveness and smoothness
Two position zoom lens for close-up and full body options
A range of eye-catching visual effects to apply to photos and videos
Bundled with EyeCreate™ editing software, which allows users to save and edit photos, video and audio clips

I've many happy memories of playing with the original EyeToy, I even had my Dad waving his arms around trying to play EyeToy once. It was prone to the novelty wearing off after a while though. With Wii and social gaming now more popular than ever, many people have some high hopes for Sony's next generation Eye Toy.
Features such as the better performance in low light conditions are much needed. Capturing photos and video is also a good feature (which makes me wonder about the extent to which SingStar might take advantage of these capabilities).

ThreeSpeech goes on to say more about the software included, and some of the functionality in the New PlayStation Eye...

EyeCreate software

EyeCreate editing software, bundled free with PLAYSTATION Eye allows you to save photos, video and audio clips to your PS3 hard disk drive and apply eye-catching visual effects to your images. Different capture modes like time-lapse and slow motion open up a world of possibilities to be explored further in EyeCreate’s editing suite, where you can turn your media into professional looking movies.

EyeToy New microphone functions
An all-new four microphone array, incorporating multidirectional voice location tracking, enhanced echo cancelling and background noise suppression allows for clear audio chat in even the most noisy of environments, without the need to hold or wear a headset.

EyeToy Next-generation camera features
A frame rate of up to 120 frames per second allows for super-smooth video and sophisticated low-light operation means that the room doesn’t have to be brightly lit for the camera to deliver crisp, perfectly exposed video. The adjustable zoom lens features a 56º field of view to capture head and shoulders action for close-in audio-visual chat, and a 75º field of view to capture the whole body for a fully physical gaming experience.

Technical Specifications:

4 channel audio input:16 bits/channel, 48kHz, SNR 90db
56º to 75º Field of View zoom lens
2.1 F-stop, <1% distortion, fixed focus (25cm to 8 at 75º FOV)
640 x 480 at 60 frames/second
320 x 240 at 120 frames/second
USB2 high-speed data transfer
Uncompressed video or optional JPEG compression

Previous rumours of the new EyeToy were all touting 'HD' but it appears as if HD has been left out of the equation for the EyeToys video capture. Just VGA resolution? Pffft. They could've least have given us a widescreen format. The 120fps is at a mere 320x240. Whilst this may have little or no compression, it's the same physical dimensions that my mobile phone captures video at.
The original EyeToy had a maximum resolution of 640x480, so I'm guessing that the 60fps is a big improvement (though I can't find technical specifications about it's framerate).

So, perhaps not the revolution we were hoping for, but a nice little accessory none the less. Now - on to the games!

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